INTERVIEW: KIERAN McGEENEY: SEÁN MORANon the former Armagh captain's efforts to install that elusive winning mentality in his Kildare charges. It's their mindset that marks out great teams, not geographical location
KIERAN McGEENEY, Armagh’s All-Ireland winning captain – among other achievements during a long career of Spartan valour – is facing into his third season in charge of Kildare. The learning curve has been steep, arcing through painful interludes like losing to Wicklow in the Leinster championship and getting relegated from Division One of the NFL.
But the graph has indeed been rising, as McGeeney supervised the county’s first two appearances at the All-Ireland quarter-final stage, as well as the performance that took Kildare within touching distance of a first Leinster title in nine years in last summer’s provincial final against Dublin.
The chance was there: Dublin down to 14 men for three-quarters of the match and just three points in it at the final whistle.
“It probably helped,” he says, deliberating the significance, “but there’s only so many ‘should haves’ you can have before you have to change that.”
His background is varied. Home was the Mullaghbawn club in south Armagh, with whom he won an Ulster medal, beating Cavan’s Bailieboro in the final. Captain of his county during its greatest phase, he also relocated to Dublin and appeared in an All-Ireland final with his adopted club, Na Fianna.
Has his view of Leinster football changed since taking up the reins in Kildare?
“It probably hasn’t. Looking at the stats there, Leinster counties haven’t done well recently, but I’m of the opinion that football’s very balanced throughout the country. I don’t think there’s anything in the water that makes players from certain places more skilful.
“I do think there’s a difference in the mental strengths. Playing more big games can lead to that. When games are in the melting pot some players respond and some players don’t. I suppose that’s the difference between greatness and also-rans. Teams need to get to league play-offs on a regular basis.
“If the back-door system wasn’t in place Kerry wouldn’t have won half the All-Irelands that they’ve won, but they learn so quickly and the mental strength of the likes of Tomás and Darragh Ó Sé, the Moynihans and Declan O’Sullivan would have is what you try to bring to your own players. But pound for pound, I think there’s as much skill in Leinster as anywhere else.
“Big days develop the mentality. In Connacht and Munster it’s easier to get to provincial finals and the big counties are there more or less twice every three years playing in front of big crowds in televised matches. Kerry, Cork, Galway and Mayo are consistently in those.”
Yet the most eternally sorrowful mystery in the province has been Dublin: five times in succession Leinster champions and yet apparently drifting farther away from the status of genuine contenders despite huge attendances thronging Croke Park.
“Dublin’s a different case, though,” says McGeeney. “There are so many different pressures on their players that other counties don’t have to deal with. Play one good O’Byrne Cup game and you’re a household name in Dublin. That’s a different pressure.
“There are talented players, the likes of Paul Brogan and Diarmuid Connolly – top-rate players. But you’re hearing about them before they even play. Then hurling’s very big in Dublin, but Kerry doesn’t have any other sport. Cork does and it has an impact on them. The population is in Dublin so there’s hundreds of players at juvenile, but when it gets to minor you’re starting to struggle to put out teams.
“That’s the reality in Dublin. There’s too many other things to do. In Kerry, and even south Armagh, GAA is sacrosanct. That’s it; it’s everything. But if you’re a young lad in Dublin there’s 101 things to do – 101 sports to play. Growing up in Mullaghbawn, there’s one.”
Kildare came very close to promotion last year, losing out on the last day of the season to Cork and Monaghan. The battle to go up this year will be every bit as fierce, but McGeeney knows that, however intense his spring season is, there is a distinction, however fine, between the top two divisions.
“There’s probably not that big of a difference but the top eight teams are in Division One and probably have that mental edge over the teams in Division Two. I know when we (Armagh) played Tyrone and Kerry in the league in 2003 that it was a big thing for them to beat us, to lay down a marker. Those are the things that start to build mental strength, putting pressure on yourselves to perform on a given day.
“When Kerry players are talking to you after winning a fourth All-Ireland, what’s the first thing they say to you? They’re after their fifth. Other teams will be hugging each other and clapping each other on the back. It’s a different mindset.”
